My first biology professor had an ‘inadequacy drawer’ full of things to remind him he wasn’t, in fact, the dumbest and laziest person to ever exist. It was mostly Darwin, notably these two bits:
‘But I am very poorly today and very stupid and hate everybody and everything.’
‘I am going to write a little Book for Murray on orchids and today I hate them worse than everything.’
“I am at work on the second vol. of the Cirripedia, of which creatures I am wonderfully tired: I hate a Barnacle as no man ever did before, not even a Sailor in a slow-sailing ship.”
-Charles Darwin on a letter to his cousin
Charles Darwin: unexpected depression hero.
I knew about “I am very poorly and very stupid and hate everybody and everything,” but not the others.
“I hate myself, I hate clover, and I hate bees” is A Mood.
My favorite Darwinism: “I am dying by inches, from not having any body to talk to about insects”. Hits me right at the center of my hyperfixated soul.
I hate a Barnacle as no man ever did before
“The work has been turning out badly for me this morning and I am sick at heart and oh my God how I do hate species & varieties”
youtubers love to say “i hope i’m pronouncing that correctly” while recording themselves in a video that they upload to the internet, which they have access to
Hint: its because the video is not as well researched as its presentation implies
Hint: it’s because sometimes it’s hard to pronounce words especially if you don’t use them very often
Don’t leave this in the tags!! They’re good points! An attempt is better than nothing!
It’s one thing to listen to a correct pronunciation. It’s another to actually have your mouth form the words, especially when you’re using a sound you don’t normally use in your native language.
Maybe they’re not saying “I didn’t look up the actual pronunciation and I’m just winging it.” Maybe it’s “I looked it up and it uses a sound that I don’t use in my day to day speech and I don’t think I did it quite right but I tried.”
And sometimes, there aren’t sufficient resources to teach you the correct pronunciation! Sometimes you’ll get bot-made videos that contradict each other.
This this this this. As someone who struggles to pronounce a couple of words I use fairly often my FIRST LANGUAGE, thanks to those particular sounds just being difficult shapes for me to string together coherently, I am constantly afraid of fucking up words in other languages or even just with roots in other languages.
It’s one thing to not even try, but the “I hope I’m doing this correctly” isn’t always “I’m hoping I can just wing this word with whatever I think it’s supposed to sound like,” a lot of times it “okay so I’ve looked it up and tried it a few times so I’m really hoping its coming out right, but I’m not used enough to the language to really be sure .”
Languages are fucking DIFFICULT for a lot of people. Not just the repeating/speaking part, but also the ability to HEAR and RECOGNIZE the patterns and sounds.
This. Look, I absolutely want to pronounce long scientific words and the names of people from other ethnic groups and words in other languages correctly. But I spent years of my childhood desperately attempting and failing to be able to do the Hungarian gutteral r of my direct family history. I had speech therapy as a kid to get English phonemes down, expecting me to manage ones I’m not used to is unfair unless you’re giving me years to practice.
Also, sometimes there are conflicts on how a word is pronounced. We already know about a lot of the English words that are spelled the same but get pronounced differently depending on context, imagine how much more confusing that is for someone from an outside perspective. “Lead” as in “lead them here,” and “lead” as in “lead balloon” both look the samr but use different sounds. And when you apply that to a language you don’t know that already uses sounds you’re unfamiliar with, mistakes are gonna happen. Then you have dead languages. There’s conflict on things as basic as the pronunciation of mythological names occasionally!
Then, of course, there’s regional pronunciations. Nobody that isn’t from a very small sliver of my home county knows how “Corral Creek” is pronounced even though it LOOKS like it should be pretty simple, and I’d never get mad at someone for pronouncing it the way it looks. Because who the hell would look at that and think “yeah, that’s pronounced Krel Crick”? Not many people! And you’re likely not gonna find that on the internet either, because I’m probably about the only person who has ever brought it up online.
how do i know what’s right?
i feel like i have zero critical thinking skills ;-;
a lot of the time when someone poses an idea or a theory they think they’re right, and so they use language that enforces that. but then someone refutes it, and uses language affirming what they believe and i see the point in their argument. and then it gets refuted again and again and again and im just confused.
hi great question. i would love it if there were a single easy litmus test to figure out who’s ‘right’ and whose info i should trust! unfortunately things are rarely this easy, and it’s actually completely normal to be overwhelmed by the amount of information being produced and shared, especially when it comes to topics you haven’t researched/lived/etc. for most of us, this will be most topics!
i’d preface this by saying that i think your overall attitude here is actually a good one. you’re framing it in a pretty self-deprecating way—but actually, imo this type of openness to discussion and disagreement is a really good place to start, esp when dealing with topics that are new to you. nobody enters a contentious debate with a fully fledged, defensible viewpoint. you might feel like you’re just treading water here, making no progress toward being able to evaluate arguments for yourself, but i highly doubt that’s true.
all of that said: while i again cannot give you a single litmus test for figuring out what’s 'right’, there are four pretty basic sets of questions that i automatically run through when encountering a new idea, source, topic, or argument: we can call these origin, purpose, value, and limitations.
origin: who’s the author? do they have any institutional affiliations? who pays their salary? is this argument or paper funded in any way? is the argument dependent upon the author’s social position or status (race, class, etc) and if so, are those factors being discussed clearly? does the author have ties to a particular nation-state or stakes in defending such a nation-state? what’s the class character of the author and the argument? what’s the social, economic, and intellectual context that gave rise to this argument or source?
purpose: why is this source or person disseminating this information or making this argument? are they trying to sell you anything? are their funders? are they trying to persuade you of a particular political viewpoint? keeping in mind the answers to the 'origin’ questions, are there particular ideological positions you would expect to find in this source or argument, and are they present? what are the stakes for the author or source? what about for those who cite the source or further disseminate or publish it?
value: what does this source or argument accomplish well? what aspects of the argument are new to you and strike you as insightful? are there linkages being made that you haven’t encountered elsewhere, and that you think are effectively and sufficiently defended? are there statistics or empirical data that might be useful to you in forming your own argument, even if you disagree with how this source or author is interpreting them? what does this argument or source tell you about the types of debates being had, and the rules of those debates?
limitations: where does this argument or source fail you or fall apart? are there obvious rhetorical fallacies you can identify? is the author forgetting or overlooking some piece of information that you know of from elsewhere? which viewpoints may be omitted? keeping in mind the answers to the 'purpose’ questions, if this source is defending a particular ideology or political position, is that one you agree with? is it only defensible so long as the author omits or distorts certain pieces of information? are there points where the argument jumps from evidence to a conclusion that the evidence can’t fully support? are there alternative explanations for the evidence?
over time you will often find that it becomes more and more automatic to ask yourself these questions. you will also find that the more you read/hear about a particular topic, the faster you can determine whether someone is presenting all of the evidence, presenting it fairly, and using it to fully defend the argument they ultimately want to make. and you will probably also find that at some point, you’re able to synthesise your own argument by pulling the strong parts from multiple other people’s viewpoints, combining them with your own thinking, and fitting them together in a way that adequately explains and materially analyses the issue at hand.
What makes JKR’s shitshow even harder to process is that she didn’t just ruin a book series. Harry Potter was an entire subculture. Like Star Wars and Star Trek fans, Harry Potter fans dedicated their lives and careers to the series. I don’t know if I’d call it “underground,” but liking Harry Potter got you beaten up when I was in school, so it was more of a dedicated indie culture than a mass-appeal fanbase.
Harry Potter was so huge that fan works developed their own followings. Potter Puppet Pals racked up hundreds of thousands of followers and was nearly as relevant as the series itself. For fanfiction, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationalitygot so big that it has a Wikipedia page. The band Harry and the Potters spawned the wizard rock music genre. A Very Potter Musical developed a fanbase and launched Darren Criss’s career.
Harry Potter also has extensive ties to fandom history. Everyone in my generation (millennials) remembers coming home from school to read Harry Potter fanfiction on the Internet. Today, most people just post their stories on Wattpad or Archive of Our Own. But at the time, the fanbase was splintered between fanfiction.net and dozens of individual websites and forums, some made for specific ships. Since they all had individual hosts, a lot of those sites have been lost to time.
And there’s the infamous My Immortal fanfiction, which is an Internet legend with people still searching for the author. Everybody read that one (and laughed at it) in middle school.
Pre-social media, fan sites like The Leaky Cauldron and Mugglenet had massive followings because they were one of few sources for news, theories, essays and fan content. Some of these sites still exist after being around for over a decade and building their own legacy.
Before Deathly Hallows came out, fans were so desperate to know what happened that Mugglenet published a book called What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Falls in Love and How Will the Adventure Finally End? Yep…Harry Potter was so big that people wrote separate books about what would happen in an upcoming book.
And that’s not mentioning all the book release parties, Harry Potter-themed events, monuments, fan films, restaurants and even a theme park. A lot of fandoms have those, but Harry Potter infiltrated every aspect of popular culture.
Today, there’s a thriving culture of “Harry Potter adults” with themed weddings, baby showers and Etsy stores. Putting your Hogwarts house in your Instagram bio is pretty much a prerequisite for joining the “bookish” community. Warner still produces new content, like the Fantastic Beasts series, although we’ve all seen what a disaster that’s been.
Everyone has at least a few memories associated with Harry Potter even if it’s just watching the movies. I had great memories associated with Harry Potter. But looking back at the subculture, history and thousands of fan works, it doesn’t seem fun anymore. Studying the fandom or being part of it comes with an awkward tension because you don’t want to seem like you’re condoning JKR’s bigotry but can’t divorce her from the series. This subculture was spawned by a woman who turned her legacy of magic and wonder into one of abuse and hatred.
I don’t expect people to write paragraphs about how much they hate JKR every time they post about Harry Potter, but it’s still uncomfortable to see people make new content or wear their Harry Potter Etsy tote bags like nothing happened. Even if they clarify that they don’t support her, it’s just a weird, tense situation for everybody.
People dedicated years of their lives to running Harry Potter fan sites, writing fanfiction, cosplaying characters and making fan movies. If I were in that situation, I’d have a mild identity crisis. I’d ask myself “Did I waste all those years? Should I delete my content? Where do I go from here?”
So ultimately, JKR didn’t ruin “just” a book series or even “just” a fandom. She tanked an entire culture, which inspired people to look at Harry Potter more critically. The issues that people brought to the light tainted the series’s legacy even without JKR’s personal issues.
Once, Harry Potter was a series for generations. Now, former fans hope that the series fades into irrelevancy. Unfortunately, JKR didn’t just tarnish her legacy–she took decades of history, millions of fans and a worldwide subculture along with her.
it’s crazy having been super-involved in the HP fandom for more than a decade and watching the fallout from this
the harry potter alliance (a nonprofit) has rebranded to fandom forward
the sub-subcultures that sprung up within the HP fandom have now distanced themselves from the main fandom and have become independent groups in their own right
HP was so integral to the development of early online fandom (as OP’s mentioned) that now there’s sort of just a weird… hole in the internet
for many HP fans, it took up a lot of their life. three conventions a year, wizard rock shows, HPA fundraising, granger leadership academy, nightly fanfic, podcasts, quidditch games.
when fans (rightfully) shunned JKR and began to leave the fandom, a lot of them (myself included) were left rudderless. how do you reconcile the fact that most of your friends, hobbies, sometimes even jobs, were due to the work of such a hateful person? as OP said, did i waste my life?
i’m obviously not saying that this is the worst part about JKR’s bigotry (the worst part is, of course, the bigotry) or that HP fans are the worst-done-by victims (who are of course trans people)
but it is WILD to see such a juggernaut of internet fandom be virtually scrubbed away
You know what, fuck it, I don’t *want* some frivolous, artisanal, lighter-than-air computer with no customizability, no upgradeability, no reparability, no ports, and a lifetime of *maybe* 3 years if you’re lucky. I want a fucking great BEAST of a computer that’s designed to last a minimum of 50 years, with ports up the wazoo and optional drives for every kind of media! I want modular components that you can drop in a bog for a year, dry them off, and have them still work fine! I want them to make a noise like “ker-chunk!” when you slide them into place! I want a switch that you pull to turn it on! And I don’t want software that constantly forces you to get a pointless, cosmetic “upgrade” every few months either! I want durability! I want longevity! I want satisfying haptics! I want Silicon Valley to go fuck itself!
“i’m not going to link any of them here, for a variety of reasons, but please be aware of what is probably the deadliest AI scam i’ve ever heard of:
“plant and fungi foraging guide books. the authors are invented, their credentials are invented, and their species IDs will kill you.”
…So PLEASE be careful if you run across anything of this kind.
(ETA: Corrected egregious typo in the title. Apologies, as I was [a] in bed [b] typing hurriedly and one-handed on the iPad, and [c] I think its native keyboard may need recalibration, but also [d] I was upset about what I was having to post, because seriously, WTF?!!)
Every 21st century piece of writing advice: Make us CARE about the character from page 1! Make us empathize with them! Make them interesting and different but still relatable and likable!
Every piece of classic literature: Hi. It’s me. The bland everyman whose only purpose is to tell you this story. I have no actual personality. Here’s the story of the time I encountered the worst people I ever met in my life. But first, ten pages of description about the place in which I met them.
Modern writing advice: Yes your protagonist should have flaws but ultimately we should root for them and like them from the beginning :)
Charles Dickens: Here is the worst ugliest rudest meanest nastiest bitch you’ve ever met in your life.
Modern writing advice: Make sure your POV character goes through a significant arc! Make sure they are changed by the narrative! Make sure they learn a lesson!
Narrators of every book of the 19th century: the lesson I learned is these people fucking suck, sayonara you freaks
Modern writing advice: It’s all about the character overcoming obstacles and learning! They learn their lesson so they can fix their mistakes and make good choices in the future! It’s a character arc! It’s called growth! Readers love it!
Everyone from ancient times through the 19th century: would you like to watch a Guy fuck up twenty times in a row
Somewhere or other, C. S. Lewis points out (and I’m paraphrasing here) that every era of writing has its own tropes and its own blind spots; its own failings and its own successes. This is why it’s important to read in lots of different eras: so you can see what does and doesn’t work, in the long run, and be able to make your own informed choices about how to write.
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